Roberto Di Matteo has risked embarrassing his boss by saying it helps to have been a top player for a successful career in management. Although Chelsea's assistant coach was not directly asked about André Villas-Boas, the 34-year-old is one of few managers not to have played the game professionally.

Di Matteo was asked if a management career would be aided by having played at the highest level.

"It helps because you understand the emotions, the stress that the players have because you went through that yourself," he said. "So it does help being able to deal with certain situations with the pressure, because you naturally find yourself in an environment you've been in before."

Chelsea are currently 11 points behind the leaders, Manchester City, as Villas-Boas takes his team into Sunday's FA Cup tie against Portsmouth at Stamford Bridge. Although they are in the Champions League, Di Matteo claimed the club could afford to have a season of transition where no trophies were won, despite Roman Abramovich's history of impatience with managers who fail to reach expectations.

"It's happened at many other big clubs to be honest, so sometimes [that is] part of the progress and the cycle of being better in a couple of years," the assistant manager said.

Di Matteo denied the FA Cup represents the club's best opportunity for silverware this season. He said: "At the moment we are in three competitions and it's one of the them. As difficult as it looks in the Premier League, we are still in it. We're going to play a strong side [against Portsmouth] because we want to win this game on Sunday."

Di Matteo did concede that winning the Cup might reinvigorate the club. "Let's not forget that these guys have been successful in the past few years so maybe it could reignite a new cycle," he said. "Definitely winning trophies brings you that belief and confidence that you can win other things."

Villas-Boas remains under pressure – his side have won only once in their past five games. But Di Matteo is unsure if the Portuguese is facing more pressure than any other manager at a major club. "I don't know but you know if you're working at a big club you know that [pressure] comes with that criteria, so I don't think he's surprised. I think he's dealing very well with it," he said. "We are Chelsea football club and we are expected to win and we're here to win. We know that if it gets difficult you guys will jump on our back."

Di Matteo was the manager of West Bromwich Albion before he was sacked last year. Michael Appleton, the Portsmouth manager, worked alongside him at the Midlands club before he moved to the south coast in November, and both had their playing careers cut short by injury. While Appleton has stated that this gave him extra drive, Di Matteo denied his injury made him more motivated to succeed as a manager. "I come from the same thing [as Appleton] that I was injured, but the drive doesn't come because I cut my career short," he said.

"The drive comes because I love this job and I have the passion for this sport. What I do on a daily basis, dealing with all the factors I have to deal with, is great and I love what I do.

"It's a completely different job [being a manager]. You can't really compare. It's the same sport but being a coach or manager has totally different responsibilities than a player."